Brazil’s Foreign Ministry said Saturday that it had rejected visa applications from two US State Department officials who were seeking to visit the country next week, marking the latest flashpoint in the growing political tensions between Brasília and Washington.
The decision surfaced after The Washington Post reported that Brazilian authorities believed the officials — Riley M. Barnes, an assistant secretary, and Samuel Samson, a deputy assistant — intended to raise doubts about Brazil’s October elections.
A spokesperson for Brazil’s foreign office said Barnes and Samson submitted their visa requests on July 20, and that the applications were refused on Friday.
The spokesperson did not provide an explanation for why the visas were denied.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is seeking reelection in a race against Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, whose family has extensive ties to the Trump administration.
Sen. Bolsonaro and his brother, Eduardo, traveled to Washington in late May, where they met with US officials, including US President Trump.
Soon after that visit, the Trump administration designated Brazil’s largest drug-trafficking organizations — First Command Capital and Red Command — as foreign terrorist organizations, a step opposed by Lula.
The Trump administration has also introduced tariff increases of up to 37.5% on thousands of Brazilian exports, with the new levies taking effect Friday.
The US government claims the South American nation has unfair competition practices and fails to stop forced labor practices — both accusations rejected by the Lula administration as an attempt to sway the election to Sen. Bolsonaro.
The US State Department said Barnes and Samson planned to go to Brasilia July 27-30 to meet government officials, religious leaders and others about “election integrity,” religious freedom and freedom of expression.
The department, in response to a query from The Associated Press, called it a routine visit and said that “any insinuation of a ‘ploy’ to undermine a democratic nation’s election is a baseless lie.”
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has for years fed concerns about the country’s electronic voting system, without providing any evidence for his claims.
He is now serving a 27-year prison sentence at home for an attempted coup. He has long insisted that the machines, used for a quarter-century, are prone to fraud.
His son, Sen. Bolsonaro, has recently repeated some of these claims, although he steered clear of those on Saturday when his Liberal Party confirmed him as a presidential candidate in Sao Paulo.
